Agrium Voting Day: Jana Proxy Fight Comes Down to the Wire

It’s shareholder decision day on one of the more heated activist fights of the year: Jana Partners v Agrium.

This morning was the deadline for shareholders to vote in the proxy fight, and both sides have lobbed their final letters at the holders proclaiming why the other side shouldn’t be trusted. It has not been a very cordial fight over the past few months and the past 24 hours have been no different.

Here’s a rundown of the fight: Jana took a stake last summer and began suggesting Agrium was underperforming and mismanaged. Jana said Agrium would be smart to split off its retail operations. Agrium explored and rejected the spin-off because it would “destroy” shareholder value. Agrium instead boosted its dividend payment twice, after boosting the payment just before Jana arrived, and said Jana had nothing to do with that move. Jana said it is not focused on the split but improving results however works best. The two sides have since traded barbs about who gets credit for share gains and whether or not the fight is only about splitting up Agrium.